"...if, as I have said, the Israelites had to be enslaved in Egypt for Moses to emerge as their forceful leader; if the Persians had to be oppressed by the Medes so that the greatness of Cyrus could be recognized; if the Athenians had to be scattered to demonstrate the excellence of Theseus: then, at the present time, in order to discover the worth of an Italian spirit, Italy had to be brought to her present extremity. She had to be more enslaved than the Hebrews, more oppressed than the Persians, more widely scattered than the Athenians; leaderless, lawless, crushed, despoiled, torn, overrun; she had to have endured every kind of desolation."

The most interesting part of Machiavelli's book on the way history runs its course. Its best to ignore the obvious lack of empathy in his tone.